How did we come up with the idea of eating something sweet at the end of our meals? Well, let’s go back to the Middle Ages, when the banquets didn’t have an order. As the table was ready and full of meats, stews, bread, pastries, cheeses, fruit and cakes, people just grab what they wanted to eat. There was no differentiation between dishes and everything was eaten at the same time, the way each one wanted, from the salty to the sweet. Big amounts of food symbolized the wealth of the host. That is why we can safely say that the idea of a special dish served at the end of the meal is relatively modern. However, it wasn’t because the concept of “dessert” was born that we had to wait to try delicious sweet creations across the world.
According to different historians, we can thank to Catherine de Medici the tradition of eating dessert at the end of the meal. In 1533, she left Florence to marry the future French king Henry II. That was when the Italian and the French cuisines fused at certain points, with the Italian entourage that accompanied the future queen taking lots of cookbooks and new dishes to France. After the arrival of Catherine to France, the court began to eat with forks and to accept women at feasts, but especially to enjoy the dessert at the end of the meal.
That is why, today, we have special desserts spread across the world and many of us eat these delicacies after lunch or dinner. However, sometimes we love to break the rules and snatch some typical sweets like the Spanish churros con chocolate or a few Peruvian picarones in the middle of the afternoon. And speaking of exotic desserts, how about travelling across the world to know the best recipes out there?
